


Keep Calm And Carry On (this war isn't ours, but we're stuck with it)

by venndaai



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gallifrey, Gen, Time Lords in silly hats, Time War, alternate universe shenanigans, mild body horror, my attempt to reconcile Eleven's 'robot boyfriend' line
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 06:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1377415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once she got over the whole “building unspeakably horrible weapons for a criminally insane alien scientist” aspect, Alison started to quite enjoy herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Calm And Carry On (this war isn't ours, but we're stuck with it)

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for unwanted sexual attention at one point.
> 
> My first decent-length fic in forever and it's hella obscure, wow.

It started with a loud, obnoxious beeping from the general direction of the console room.

“Doctor?” The Master's voice boomed through the ship's Gothic corridors. “My dear, it's them again.”

Alison, sitting on the edge of her bed, put down the ripped shirt she'd been trying to mend. It had been a long year and she still hadn't learned much about who They were, except that They were the Doctor's people and he didn't like them very much. She wondered why they were calling this time. To send the Doctor on another mission? To tell him of a place he shouldn't go?

“I'm COMING,” the Doctor shouted, followed by a loud clatter. Alison winced.

Her host stomped his way to the center of the ship and did something which ended the beeping. Alison listened as hard as she could but couldn't make out any of the conversation. Eventually she went back to her shirt. It was a fancy thing she'd gotten at a street market on Marpesia. A series of beautifully worked straps criss-crossed the back, forming a layer of armor that had come in handy a few months later, when a sword had slashed an inch deep into the leather. Alison didn't want to give the shirt up for lost, but she didn't have the tools or knowledge for leatherworking.

About half an hour later, she became aware that the ship was utterly silent and had been for some time. She put the shirt down, got up and padded into the console room, fluffy socks slapping against the cold floor.

Her companions were sitting together on the couch, and something was wrong. The Doctor was vibrating in place, miserably, and the Master was patting his hand and saying something low in a reassuring tone.

She stood there, feeling awkward.

The Doctor looked up at her. “Alison,” he gasped, the way he sometimes did, like he couldn't believe she was actually there. He leapt up. “Oh, Alison,” he said, and enveloped her in an unexpected hug.

She tolerated it for a while, then shoved him off. “Right,” she said, “what's gone wrong this time?”

The Master said, dryly, “We've been summoned home. The prospect of so many reunions are filling us both with joy.”

“It's not that,” the Doctor snapped.

“Sorry,” the Master said contritely, and stood up so he could go back to patting the Doctor's arm.

“Something dire is happening, judging by this message,” Alison's strange, tall, pasty friend said, “and I am completely at a loss for what to do. Should I go and help? Or should I run in the opposite direction and hope they forget about me in the chaos?”

Alison sighed. “I know you,” she said. “I know you'll do the right thing.”

“Oh,” said the Doctor, in a dramatically dismal tone.

Alison's eyes slid to meet the Master's. He favored her with the smallest of his grins, but there was a weariness in his face. She rubbed her eyes. She'd been looking forward to a quiet day off, as much of a vacation from her fellow travelers and their inscrutable alien drama as from life-threatening escapades.

“Very well,” the Doctor hissed, “I'll run back home like an obedient little dog,” he threw a switch, “and render assistance,” he tapped an impossibly fast combination of buttons, “unto those who couldn't care less whether I live or die!”

The TARDIS began its familiar wheezing, the bar inside the pillar of light slowly rising and falling.

“Right, everyone hang on now,” he said, and Alison dove for the railing, wrapping herself firmly around its comfortingly solid metal bars. The Master gracefully stepped to the staircase and attached himelf to it in a way that could almost be mistaken as mere casual lounging. The Doctor appeared to disregard his own advice, continuing to flit around the console, doing unknowable things.

“Wait,” he said, an edge to his voice. “There's something wro-”

That was the last coherent thing Alison heard before they very obviously hit something. Alison was suddenly irrationally convinced she was in a car crash. She clung to the railing as unknown forces hammered the TARDIS, gravity and momentum pummelling everything and everyone inside. The softly glowing roundels exploded. Steam rose from under various grates. Alison closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the sound and the fury.

“Oh no you DON'T,” said the Doctor, barely on the edge of her hearing, and then there was a sound that might have been him wrenching something.

And then it was over. Alison flopped to the ground. It was completely dark for a second, and then eye-straining red emergency lights turned on, emanating from somewhere unknowable.

“Alison?” the Doctor shrieked, far too loudly for her battered eardrums.

She waved an arm tiredly, then used it to lever herself into what might be charitably called a sitting position.

“I am also fine,” came a low rumble. “Not that you care.”

“Oh, don't be such a drama queen,” said the Doctor with an utterly blissful lack of self awareness. “I don't think we're in the usual docking bay. They've parked us somewhere else- that can't be good. Well, at least we've landed.” Suddenly, his cool hands rested on Alison's cheeks. “Look into my eyes?”

Blearily, she did.

“Follow my face.” He swayed back and forth, and she reluctantly followed him, feeling rather like throwing up. “No concussion, excellent.” He was gone as instantly as he had appeared, back at the console, where some kind of tablet was being extruded from a wide slot.

The Master emerged from the darkness on the other side of the room. “Sometimes I wonder who in Rassilon's name passed you in basic four-dimensional travel, and then I remember you didn't even show up to the test.”

Uncharacteristically, the Doctor didn't answer.

“What now?” Alison asked. Something was pounding on her skull with a hammer. She leaned against one of the columns, trying to focus on the hissing and popping as the TARDIS settled in and recovered from its wild ride.

Silently, the Doctor handed the tablet to the Master. Then, without another word, he strode from the console room. Alison rolled her eyes. If she listened really hard she would probably be able to hear when the Doctor started throwing his tantrum, but she didn't really care to make the effort.

The Master's eyes glowed slightly orange as they scanned the tablet. He sighed. “A time lock,” he said, apparently to himself. “How terribly obvious.”

“Master?” Alison enquired, forgetting even how much she hated his stupid name. She clambered to her feet, telling her various bruises to shut up.

“Alison, my dear,” he said, “I'm afraid we've gotten ourselves in a rather unfortunate situation.”

Alison had gotten quite good at reading her companions over the past year. She stared at him, her headache increasing.

“If you could come here,” the Master said, quietly. Alison pushed herself off the column and walked to him. Without any warning, the Master reached out and took her hands, enfolding them gently in his long fingers, soft velvet over hard steel digits. Alison sucked in her breath.

“I'm afraid,” her friend explained, “that time has been changed, and everything inside this TARDIS no longer has the right to exist.”

Alison tightened her fingers on his. “That's rubbish,” she said, terrified and furious. “Everything has a right to exist, no matter what. It's not something that goes away.”

The Master smiled at her gratefully, but it slipped off his face too soon. “A good point, my dear, but the fact is that our universe as we know it no longer exists, and should we leave the safety of the time lock that appears to have been erected around Gallifrey, neither shall we.”

She couldn't grasp it. “Earth-”

“Is still there. Probably. But the timeline's been changed at some point. It's no longer quite the Earth we left.”

“And we-”

“Doubtless there are other versions of ourselves out there. We might not recognize them if we met them.”

Alison wished her headache would be useful and distract her from the growing horror paralyzing her limbs. “You're very knowledgeable about this.”

He made a few barely audible hums and clicks before replying, a sure sign of stress. “Horror stories our teachers would tell at the Academy. Why amateurs shouldn't meddle with time.” He laughed, not his usual rich chuckle, but an almost hysterical giggle. “Or meddle with time wars, come to that.”

There were footsteps behind her. Alison turned to see the Doctor standing in the arch. He was even paler than usual, and his eyes were an irritated red. His fingers were shaking, making the bottle he was gripping slosh back and forth. “Alison,” he said, “I am so very sorry. I never should have taken you with us.”

“Don't be stupid,” she told him. For some reason, seeing the Doctor fall apart made her own panic easier to bear. Maybe it was just that she had someone to be strong for, even if that person was a centuries-old alien wanker. “It was my own bloody decision, wasn't it?”

He smiled shakily and tossed her the bottle. It was the Anagonian wine they'd been saving for a special occasion. She uncorked it and chugged, throat burning. She could still see the rent bulkheads fizzing and sparking behind her closed eyelids, could still hear the crackle of fires in the ship's depths that still hadn't been put out by the automated extinguishers.

There was a loud rapping on the door. Alison jumped, spilling the rest of the wine, and noticed with some satisfaction that the Doctor had tripped and fallen in his surprise. The Master appeared unflappable as usual.

The rapping continued.

“Right,” the Doctor said, attempting to get to his feet, “I suppose it's time to face the music.” There was a questioning quality to his voice, asking if it really was necessary to face whatever was outside and if they mightn't just ignore it until it went away.

The Master nodded to Alison, then smoothly moved to the Doctor's left side and helped him up. Alison moved to the Doctor's other arm. Hands clasped, they walked, a bit unsteadily, to the door.

It opened, revealing a large, white-walled space beyond, and directly in front of them, two human-shaped people.

Alison blinked. She'd expected austentatiousness. She hadn't expected quite this level of costumery. The small woman looking them up and down had a headdress that was nearly bigger than her, and Alison was surprised she didn't fall over from the number of chains. The somewhat taller man next to her doubtless thought he was being restrained with only the one big chain hung on his sweeping purple robes.

The Doctor shoved Alison and the Master away from him and stood, drawing himself up into a towering column of scarecrow. “Hello,” he said. His voice could have frozen nitrogen. The woman sighed and the man looked even more tired and morose than he had before.

“Doctor,” said the woman. “From that tone of voice, I presume you recognize us?”

“Lady President,” he said stiffly, and then, with some venom, “Brother dearest.”

Alison felt her mouth fall open. There certainly wasn't much family resemblance between the Doctor and this broad, well-groomed man with dark skin and tightly curled bronze hair. Then again, they were aliens.

“...you're ginger,” the Doctor commented. “Oh, that really isn't fair. You weren't ginger when I saw you last.”

“Yes, well, quite a lot has changed since then,” the Doctor's apparent sibling replied. “More, perhaps, than either of us are aware of.”

“Let's focus,” said the President. “We've managed to conceal your arrival. You should know that if the Council hears of your presence they will demand your immediate destruction. There are a lot of concerns, valid or not, about the strength of the time-lock, and your existence will feed fears of its collapse.”

“The Cardinals?” the Doctor said. “Why does anyone care what they think? Didn't you have them all locked up centuries ago?”

The two of them looked at him in sync. There was a short silence. Then the man hummed. “Well, well. This is very interesting. Perhaps you could tell us of this timeline you come from? There may be some useful information you can impart.”

“You are keeping us alive, then,” the Master interjected. He was using his usual discussing-the-weather tone.

“For now,” the President said, and Alison caught the Doctor's brother wincing at that.

“Fine,” said the Doctor. “Let the interrogation begin.”

“Brax will handle that,” said the President. For the first time, she glanced at Alison and the Master. “You two, keep him out of trouble if you value your existences.”

She left.

“Charming,” Alison muttered, and heard the Master snicker quietly.

Brax reached out to the Doctor, placing a gloved hand on the Doctor's arm. “I am truly sorry for this,” he said.

“Really,” said the Doctor shortly, disbelievingly. Since she was looking out for it, Alison registered the shock and hurt on Brax's face. The Doctor didn't; he was looking at the ground and fuming.

“Is no one going to make the introductions?” The Master moved forward, stopping just at the TARDIS threshold. He bowed. “Chancellor Braxiatel, I believe? This young lady is Alison Cheney of Earth, and I am-”

“Believe me,” the Chancellor interrupted, “I know who you are.”

“Then perhaps you are aware of my restrictions? I am not permitted to leave the TARDIS.”

The Chancellor favored him with a brief, tight smile. “Are you really going to try that on me?”

“Worth an attempt,” the Doctor muttered, then, louder, “It's fine. Stick with Alison.”

So the restriction was verbally set by the Doctor, not the TARDIS itself. Alison filed away this new information.

“So glad we cleared that up,” said the Chancellor.

 

* * *

 

The Doctor was led away to some unspecified interrogation chamber. Alison and the Master were left under the supervision of a dark-haired young person with pale skin, a pinched face, and an unfortunate hairdo. “I'm Rodan,” they said, “and I hope you realize you are the unluckiest bastards in the Capitol.”

“Yeah, I'd gathered that from the whole disappeared timeline deal,” Alison said.

“Oh no,” said Rodan. “No, that's not what I'm talking about.”

The Master raised an eyebrow.

“Just wait until you meet your cell mate,” Rodan said gloomily.

They were walking down what looked like a very ancient tunnel. It put Alison in mind of Crusader tunnels, or Parisian catacombs. She winced at the thought- she'd never be able to think of Paris again without reliving the feeling of slimy catacomb monsters gripping her ankles. “Excuse me,” she said, politely, “but perhaps you could tell me where we are, exactly?”

“Technically, the Old Levels,” their guide explained agreeably enough. “The President set it up as a laboratory half a span ago. A, mm, very unique laboratory that also functions as a prison.”

“Informative,” said Alison, “but I kind of need you to start bigger. Like, what planet is this?”

Rodan stopped and stared at her with narrowed black eyes. “You really are out of the loop, aren't you?”

“I guess I am,” she admitted, and aimed a glare at the Master, who whistled innocently.

Rodan's sigh went on for a very long time. “You're on Gallifrey,” they said, in a sing-song voice, “ancient home of the august and venerable Time Lords, who are currently engaged in a bloody stupid war that's ripping up the fabric of reality. You're safe for now because of our quite impressive transduction barrier and planet-wide time lock, which I personally upgraded, by the way, but that won't mean much if we lose.”

Alison didn't have anything to say to that, but the Master said “Oh” faintly, and passed a gloved hand over his face.

“The President and the Council have grown fairly desperate, which is why while your renegade friend is being questioned, you and I will be building nasty weapons with the fifth inhabitant of this little paradise. Aren't we lucky?”

They came up to a white door. Rodan keyed in a passcode, which struck Alison as surprisingly low-tech, and then held open the door. Alison and the Master passed into what appeared to be a large, well-stocked, blindingly white laboratory.

At a nearby table sat a woman in an unusually tight-fitting lab coat, her back to them, glorious red curls tumbling beyond her collar. She swiveled in her chair as they came in, and Alison was subjected to the coldest, most impersonal gaze she had ever encountered in her life. The woman's eyes were freezing gray dissection knives, and Alison was a frog with its guts on the table.

Rodan shivered. “Lady Cheney, Master... may I introduce the Rani?”

 

* * *

 

They were put to work right away in the main lab. The Master, having some actual knowledge of temporal engineering, had the honorable role of soundboard for the Rani to bounce ideas off of. Alison was relegated to fetching and carrying. She did have the satisfaction of seeing surprise flit over the Rani's perfect face when Alison demonstrated that she did actually know what most of the items requested were, and was able to identify and retrieve them from the mess that was the supply room.

After a few hours the Rani shooed them out. “As fun as this has been, dear friends, the time has come for the heavy thinking, and I'd rather not have to be looking at your ugly faces while I do it.” Rodan led them to what was apparently the living area, though it looked just as whitewashed and impersonal as the rest of the place. There was a loo, though, which came as a relief. Alison had been wondering if fancy time aliens even used toilets.

Rodan sat in a corner with a tablet on their lap, irritably tapping it now and again. The Master drew Alison to the opposite corner.

“I think you deserve to know our options,” he said.

“I agree,” said Alison.

“One: we go back, find the moment our timeline was obliterated, and save it, locking it into place as an independent universe. Obviously, the nicest solution, but I strongly doubt it would be possible. I may not be time-sensitive any more, but from the way Rodan keeps jumping around and from our pleasant reception, I suspect the area around the time-lock is an utter mess, and no amount of untangling could lead us back.”

“Fine,” said Alison.

“Two: we stay inside a time-lock for the rest of our rather short lives. Not very feasible, and very impractical. We could never interact with unprotected space again. We probably could never leave Gallifrey. And eventually our temporal patterns will start to erode, cut off from the rest of our timeline.”

“Not pleasant, I take it.”

“Not at all.”

“So what's option three?”

“We set up a resonance with the main timeline. There's a chance we could sync up, so to speak. Then, when we leave the time lock and are obliterated, our memories might be transferred to the alpha versions of ourselves.”

“But we'd still be dead.”

“Well, you can't be dead if you've never been alive, but close enough, my dear.”

Alison looked at him hard. Oh, no, she thought. You do not do this to me.

“What aren't you telling me?”

“My dear-”

She narrowed her eyes to intensify the glare-beam. “I'm not the Doctor. I can see through you.”

He smiled apologetically. “If you must know- I don't believe there is an alpha version of myself.”

She brought her hands up to scrub at her eyes. “Oh. Oh, God.”

“Ms. Cheney, I am very sorry.”

Her hands dropped down to make fists by her thighs. “And I take it none of this will matter if the planet gets blown up by whoever they're fighting.”

“Perceptive as always, my dear.” His glove rests on her shoulder for a moment, a feather-light touch, and then it's gone.

 

* * *

 

“Hello, Alison. Hello, Master. Hello, Rani, I see your fashion taste hasn't improved. Hello, Rodan. Nice to see you! It's been quite a while.”

“It's only been sixty spans, Doctor. I've only regenerated once. Speaking of which, neutral pronouns now please.”

The Doctor peered at them. “I almost didn't notice! Rather similar to the last one, isn't it?”

Rodan chuckled. “Why mess with the classics?”

Patiently, the Master asked, “What did your dear brother wish to know?”

“Funny thing,” the Doctor said. “He started out asking me if our Gallifrey was in a war with the Daleks- not particularly, as far as I know- what weapons we had, blah blah blah. But pretty soon all he wanted to know was how my Romana runs- excuse me, ran- her tidy little military dictatorship.”

The Rani let out a full-bodied laugh, ringlets shaking.

“And what did you tell him?” asked the Master.

“As little as possible. I soon derailed the conversation into a rehashing of that incident- you know, on his graduation day, when you and I turned up wearing-”

“You didn't,” said the Master, and then they were both giggling like the awful schoolboys they must have been, however many centuries ago.

The Rani looked much less amused now.

“Did you know,” she said, “that this- listening to you lovebirds and your inspid mutually sycophantic banter- actually scores number one on my all time list of least favorite activities? That's above being eaten alive by Alvarian space wyrms and having sex with Vansell.”

“Wait,” interjected Rodan, who looked like their head was about to explode, “have you actually-”

The Rani stood up. “That's it,” she said, “everyone out.” She gestured at Alison. “Not you, you can stay.”

Alison wasn't sure she wanted to, but she stayed put on her stool as the two Time Lords and the robot reluctantly filed out. The Doctor might have been trying to wink at her; his face contorted into several humorous shapes as he attempted to convey something to her. Alison just stuck her tongue out at him.

When they were gone, the Rani came a bit closer to Alison and looked her over, gaze lingering at certain points. Alison felt herself flush, and wrapped her arms tight around her chest. The Rani was gorgeous and all, but Alison was pretty sure she was also fairly homicidal and all in all not someone you wanted eyeing you up.

“Alison, right?”

“That's me,” she said with a nervous laugh. Get a hold of yourself, she thought, and stopped her eyes from wandering, fixing them on the Rani in an attempt to counter the alien's intense presence.

“You're a moderately capable little monkey. I suppose he wouldn't have picked you if you weren't.” She took another step until she was only an arm's length away. “I'd like to offer you a deal.”

Alison's mouth went dry. “A deal?”

“Yes, and don't parrot, it's tiresome. I'm aware of your... interesting situation, and I can imagine the Doctor's already realized what he'll have to do to rectify it.”

She tried swallowing. “You mean the universe resonating thing?”

“Is that how it was explained to you? I suppose it will do. Yes. The important part is that when we lose this war- don't interrupt, we will lose, it's inevitable- when we lose, you are going to wake up on Earth, hopefully with your memories intact, and then you will do something for me.”

Suddenly Alison wasn't afraid any more. If she was understanding correctly, the Rani was desperate. And Alison had leverage. She narrowed her eyes, and twisted a braid around her finger, rolling the beads back and forth. “Why should I do anything for you?”

“Because,” said the Rani, “I can save the machine.”

 

* * *

 

Once she got over the whole “building unspeakably horrible weapons for a criminally insane alien scientist” aspect, Alison started to quite enjoy her job. The Rani built nasty little literal time bombs, which Alison gathered did a variety of inventive things to their victims' “temporal signatures”, and then Alison, Rodan and the Master packed them up in robotic delivery systems. Alison settled down in her own small area, separated from the Master's larger workshop by an empty doorway. She'd never considered herself particularly technical- she'd flunked all her maths in school, and resigned herself to a life of bartending before the whole galactic adventuring field opened up before her- but in the past year patient teaching from the Master and not-so-patient but slightly more instructive lessons from the Doctor had uncovered a hidden talent in her for taking things apart and putting them back together.

“Should we really be doing this?” she called to the Master, not moving her eyes from the control panel she was soldering to a circuit board. “I mean, we don't know anything about this war, we don't know how these weapons are going to be used.”

“My dear, it never fails to surprise me that you come to me for moral advice,” came the measured response.

Alison made a face down at her work. “Yes, yes, you're oh-so-evil and would murder me in a heartbeat if your head wasn't made of computer chips. You and the Doctor keep telling me, and you know what, I keep not buying it.”

All that came from the other room was an inquisitive “Indeed?”

“Yeah, 'indeed'. I've been paying attention, this past year. I know you. You might have been evil once, but I don't think you are any more, and I don't think the Doctor should keep locking you in the TARDIS.”

“Are you offering to plead my character?” he said, and it was light, but there was something very serious underneath.

“Maybe,” said Alison. “If that's what you really want.”

“Whatever are you implying?”

They really shouldn't be shouting this conversation, but it's almost easier, talking without looking at each other, with ten feet of space as a buffer. “Like I said, I've been paying attention. I know you're not evil. I'm not sure you know it.”

There was a long silence, then, “I wouldn't strain yourself worrying about the moral implications of these weapons. From the hints Rodan has dropped, we're fighting the Daleks. You've never met them, because in our timeline, they were... quite thoroughly destroyed.”

Alison shivered. “I'm guessing you and the Doctor were involved.”

“Oh yes,” said the Master, coldly. “Trust me, Miss Cheney, the Daleks have no redeeming characteristics. They do not have families, or little crying children. They have only unbearable xenophobia, hatred, and fear.”

“Kind of like Time Lords, then,” said Alison, pressing her pieces of metal together, and was rewarded with the Master's deep, rich, honest laugh.

 

* * *

 

Days passed. A routine of sorts was established, though everyone was far too on edge for it to really feel like routine. It was more like they were all keeping themselves busy while waiting for something to happen.

Alison worked. She pestered Rodan with questions whenever she got the chance, and sometimes Rodan felt like answering. She didn't ask the Rani many questions, because every one was answered, often in a detail that Alison really hadn't wanted. The Doctor vanished, or at least, Alison stopped seeing him around.

Maybe the reality of their situation wasn't sinking in, or maybe she was just that good at dealing with it and carrying on. Whatever the reason, she was glad not to be dealing with angst on top of the rest of it.

She started to really miss suns, and fresh air, and clothes that weren't stupid-looking.

 

* * *

 

Alison was so engrossed in the work that it was quite a few minutes before it registered with her that there was someone in the other room, and that the Master was talking to them, in a very strange tone of voice.

“Oh, this is rich,” the Master's voice hissed. “This is a new low, even for him. How lonely was he, how desperate, that he made this toy to satisfy those urges he pretends he doesn't have?”

Alison put down the soldering torch and walked through the doorway. She stopped, blinking. There were two Masters in the room- or rather, there was someone who appeared to be the Master she knew, in his monkish black finery, and another man, leaning towards him predatorially, who looked exactly like him- well, not exactly. He appeared somewhat younger, he was wearing red robes in a nominally Gallifreyan style, and he was mad. Alison could see it in his face. He wasn't mad like Jenny Butcher back home with her schizophrenia, or the poor sods on the street that everyone avoided; he was mad the way people who go on shooting sprees were mad, like the various dictators she'd met on her spacetime adventures, like the monster she knew the Doctor was terrified of becoming.

Alison's Master flinched backwards, and said, unusually quiet, “Fairly desperate, I suppose.” His fingers skittered along the lab table. He was afraid of this man, and that made Alison afraid.

“Are you programmed to be good?” the red-robed man spat in an identical voice, twisted to be different. “To be... pleasing? Servile? Do you crawl and beg his forgiveness and ask to stay with him forever?” He picked up the rebar on the bench and he smiled, a rictus grin. “I wonder how he'd react, if he found you thoroughly dismantled upon his return.”

Alison took a step forward and said, as clearly and loudly as she felt she could, “Is there a problem here?”

“Alison,” the Master oozed, and she could hear the fear under his charm intensify. “I'm just having a little chat with my alter ego here. Why don't you go check on the bioexperiments in block three?”

She ignored him, walking up to his double. One of the best things about the Master was how she didn't have to crane her neck to look him in the eye, and the same held true for this other Master. She stared at him hard, and said, “You need to stop bothering my friend.”

His grin widened. “This machine is your friend, my dear?” Without warning, the bar arched overhead and slammed into the Master's head, crumpling it like tinfoil. The Master's body collapsed.

The blood pounded in Alison's ears and for a moment, all she could see was a crimson blur. Her vision returned, and she went for the bastard, screaming.

It hurt to slam into the counter, and it knocked all the air out of her. She lay there gasping as clutter rained down around her. The murderer loomed above her. He frowned down. “I suppose I'll get a painful wristslap if I kill one of their precious humans.” His familiar face took on a thoughtful expression. “Do you even count, though? You're not even meant to exist, are you?”

“Matter of perspective,” Alison said. She didn't recognize her own voice. It seemed to be coming from a long way away. All that was real was her body, and her enemy's body, and the broken figure on the floor. “From where I'm lying, looks like you're the one the universe doesn't need.”

His hands went for her neck, slowly, lazily almost. She was ready. She grabbed his arm with both hands, stepping around him, and dug her nails in through his stupid robe while she stomped on his foot. He cursed at her and shoved her away, but she caught her ankle in his long robes and he went down, sprawled on the tiled floor. That was when she went for the eyes. She knew the Doctor's people could shrug off broken bones, but she sincerely doubted any species was immune to eye-gouging, hair-pulling and ear-biting. Alison hadn't been in a fistfight since she was twelve, but you never forgot the rage that heightened the senses and narrowed the world down to a need to inflict pain.

He tried to grab her braids, but a prepared spacetime adventurer always did her hair in a very deliberate way so pulling didn't hurt. She shook her head violently, and was rewarded by the unmistakable sound of beads whipping flesh. Shrieking with rage, he rolled her over and gazed at her with hot hate in his mad eyes. Then there was a quiet pop, an electric charge that sizzled in Alison's veins, and the man's eyes unfocused and he fell. Alison shoved him off of her, suddenly drained.

“Sorry,” said a female voice, and a black leather boot kicked the man further out of her way. “I lost track of him for a minute. He thought he was very clever with his little tricks.” A hand was offered, in a black glove. Alison took it, and found herself standing face to face with a grim young white woman in black spandex, golden-brown hair pulled back from a round, intense face, some kind of fizzing space gun in her other hand. “I'm Ace,” she said. “I've been trying to keep an eye on this bastard ever since they brought him back. He'll wake up with some explaining to do... I really am very sorry about this.”

Alison wasn't listening. She knelt by her friend's body. One of the Master's eyes was closed. The other was part of a mess of crumpled metal and wiring and gashes of synthetic skin.

“Hey,” Ace said curiously and, Alison felt, not very empathetically. “He looks just like the Master.”

“He is,” Alison said, and then stopped. “I mean,” she tried again, “that's the name he goes by.”

Ace didn't say anything else. There was silence for a moment, and then the sounds of the woman dragging the other body out of the room.

Alison didn't dare touch the gash in the Master's head, given all the live wires in there. Instead she took his hand and squeezed it for a second before going to find the Doctor.

She found the Rani first. “I suppose I have time to take a look,” the Gallifreyan said shortly. “You realize I'm an organic scientist, not a roboticist?”

“Do whatever you can,” Alison replied, “and stop whining. Where's the Doctor?"

"I am not his keeper," the Gallifreyan said. "He was in here a few days ago muttering about some crackbrained escape plan. He probably got lost in the tunnels and starved to death."

"Like you people could starve in two days," Alison said. "Go look at the Master."

She couldn't find Rodan, either, but when she came back to the Rani's lab she found the Master's body laid out on a folding table with the Rani peering at the bashed side of the head. Rodan was there, wearing rather odd-looking goggles.

“Hello?” said Alison.

“Hey,” said Rodan. “I'm just checking the Matrix for info that might help. Doubt I'll find any schematics- I'm pretty sure the Doctor did a full custom job with him.”

“Thanks,” said Alison, and now, now she was crying. She found a stool and sank down onto it. “Thank you.”

Rodan pushed up the goggles and watched the Rani for a second, then said impatiently, “Oh, by Omega's hand, get out of there.” They grabbed one of the things Alison had come to think of as a Gallifreyan sonic screwdriver and pushed the nonplussed renegade out of the way.

“Excuse me?” said the Rani.

“You may be an unstable genius,” Rodan said tartly, “but you're not the one with two advanced degrees in quasitronics, are you?”

The Rani made a terrible face. “...no.”

“So get out of the way,” said Rodan.

Some long seconds passed, which Alison effectively utilized to blink back the tears making her vision blur. “Right,” said the technician. “Looks like the main processor took most of the impact. The primary and secondary memory cores are both more or less intact. That's good news,” they reassured Alison. “We just need to find a replacement processor and he'll be back on his little metal feet.”

“Like this?” said the Doctor.

He took a moment to enjoy the shocked silence, and then tossed a roughly spherical thing at Rodan, who caught it, their face switching from surprise to wry amusement.

Alison did not feel particularly amused at all.

“Where the hell have you been, you enormous wanker?” she yelled.

“Finding where they'd put the TARDIS,” he said, as irritatingly self-satisfied as ever. “Once I'd found her, it was easy enough to get in and hook her up to Brax's rather primitive audio-visual system. So I knew what to bring.”

“You are the smuggest, most infuriating Time Lord I have ever-”

“Woah,” said Rodan, who was now attaching the sphere to something inside the cavity of the Master's head, “easy, now, don't go throwing titles like that around, you haven't had an extended conversation with the Chancellor yet.”

Alison pulled her stupid alien jerk of a friend into a close hug. He patted her back delicately. “Is he going to be all right?” she snuffled into his coat.

“I'm relatively confident he will be, yes.”

She stepped back enough to look him in the eyes, but kept her hands placed firmly on the comforting steadiness of his arms. “Who the hell was that bloke?”

The Doctor seemed to know who she meant. “Ah,” he said. “Um. That would be. The original live version of our nice robotic friend.”

“What?” shrieked Rodan, who was quite quick on the uptake. “All right, why did nobody tell me that some idiot resurrected the Master?”

“That idiot,” said the Rani, icily, “is standing right next to you holding a very dangerous welding tool. I would watch my words.”

Rodan rotated to face her, eyes wide. “Why would you-”

“You think they gave me a choice?” Now the Rani was back to basic irritated mode. “I told them they'd be better off with the blessed Imperiatrix than with that pathetic maniac, but nobody ever listens to me.”

A familiar voice commented, “I confess, I'm not sure whether to take offence at that.”

Alison felt like her heart had suddenly restarted. She went to the Master's side, and helped him sit up. He was quite the unnerving image, sections of human skin disrupted by cracked electronics. His intact eye blinked, and focused on her, one corner of his mouth turning up. “Hello, my dear. How long was I unavailable?”

“Only half an hour or so,” she assured him.

“I should really shut you off,” Rodan said, distantly, as though on auto-pilot. “You could cause extra damage by moving around right now.”

“I appreciate the concern,” said the Master, “and I would normally very much appreciate your tender ministrations, but I have a feeling an important conversation is occurring.”

“It's about to,” said the Rani, looking intently at the Doctor. “So you found your timeship. Can we use it to escape?”

He shook his head. “Not at the moment. It will take me a while to override the clamps. Unless...” His eyes swiveled to Rodan.

The subject of his attention appeared to be on the edge of hyperventilating, impressive in a species that never seemed to even get out of breath. “You're right, I'm the one who locked it,” they said. “But we already apparently have one dangerous renegade running about, I'm not letting out two more.”

“I don't count?” said the Master, voice glitching for a second. “I'm terribly injured.” An electronic chuckle escaped his voicebox at his own accidental joke.

“I don't think either of us count,” said Alison, keeping her hands on his shoulders, afraid he might fall over.

“Come on, Rodan,” said the Doctor, trying to be chummy. “Escape with us.”

“I am not a prisoner,” they said.

“Really. That's why the most brilliant technician on the planet is babysitting some renegades instead of coordinating the defense systems? You must have really pissed off Romana somehow. I thought you were friends with Leela. Must have done something really impressive.”

Alison realized he was sober, and therefore was probably going to be unpleasant if she didn't do something. “There must be another way out. How did... how did the other Master get in?”

“I've given up asking how he does anything,” said the Rani. “Fool's luck, I imagine.”

That was when the ground started to shake.

“Brilliant!” shouted Rodan.

“I feel the same way!” said the Doctor, exuberantly.

“What is going on?!” said Alison, dragging the Master out of the way of a falling cabinet. It hit the ground with a very loud clash. The lights were flickering, and somewhere, alarms were going off.

“Something must have breached the transduction barrier,” explained Rodan. “The idiots, they should never have taken me off the project, I would have caught it if I'd been there-”

“Shelling,” said the Rani, calmly. “And here we are, underground, surrounded by extremely deadly weapons.”

“It'll take me a few minutes to unlock the TARDIS,” Rodan said, words tripping over each other in their eagerness to escape.

The Doctor smiled. “Then we'd better get moving, yes?”

 

* * *

 

There were a few complications.

“The doors are locked!” said Rodan, after trying several different keycodes with increasing desperation. “Must be automatic lockdown procedure. Why is everyone on this planet an idiot-”

“Right,” said the Doctor, across from Alison. They were both supporting the Master, who was trying to hold his head together.“We'll be taking my way, then.” He eased the Master's weight all the way onto Alison's shoulders, and walked to the wall. With astonishment, Alison saw what looked exactly like an ordinary AC vent except ridiculously large and with the cover pried off. She used her free hand to gather up more of her ridiculous robe. These fashions clearly had not been designed with mobility in mind.

“You want me to go crawling in vents,” said the Rani, disdain dripping like poison.

The Doctor let out a whoop. “Just like old times, darling!”

“How long do we have?” asked Alison.

“Don't worry,” said the Rani. “If we were going to be hit by the bombs we'd know already. Or rather, we wouldn't, seeing as our ancestors would have been devoured by flesh-eating viruses.”

This reassured no one, but there was no quick way to get into the vent. “We really ought to leave you behind,” the Doctor told the Master.

“Amusing,” he replied, in a not very amused tone.

 

* * *

 

When she finally entered the TARDIS five unpleasant minutes later, Alison realized there was no point kidding herself any more. The gothic, absurd, non-Euclidean spaceship was home to her now, and she leaned against the railing with an enormous sense of relief.

“Rodan,” said the Doctor, warningly.

“I'm going as fast as I can!” the technician cried. “I don't want to hurt it,” they said, with rather more genuine concern than Alison had ever heard them express for another person.

A complicated silence, then, “Got it.”

“I will do the flying, thank you,” said the Rani, already at the console. “I've experienced what you two call travel and have no desire for a repeat.” One hand busied itself at the controls. The other, invisible to the Doctor, the Master, and Rodan, stealthily inserted something small into some port on the console. Alison watched, and said nothing.

“Right,” said the Rani, “here goes,” and pulled the lever.

There was no vworp-vworp sound, but the light travelled up and down the column, and though there was none of the usual shaking, Alison still had the distinct feeling of having travelled, a vague almost carsickness.

“Thank Rassilon,” Rodan breathed.

“He's not the one who did the work,” said the Rani.

Alison went to the doors, and opened them, and then stood there, mind temporarily blank.

Beyond the wooden door frame stretched a field of red grass, with copses of silver trees. Several miles in the distance, a vermillion city stretched curved domes and long metal fingers up to an orange sky. It was probably a very beautiful planet normally, but the vista was marred by the utterly wrong hole in the sky. A battle of some kind was raging around the hole, but Alison couldn't wrap her eyes around what they were seeing. There was a smell of ash in the air, and it was bitterly cold. She realized she was shivering.

“So,” said the Rani, behind her, “it's begun.”

Alison took a step outside, feet landing solidly on hard ground, a dry meadow, the grass whispering in the faint breeze. She tried to look away from the hole in the universe, and couldn't.

A hand touched her chin, and she twisted her head sideways, looked into the Doctor's sad gray eyes, similar in shade to the Rani's but so very different in quality. She looked back. The Master came limping out of the TARDIS, looking even more of a mess; his black velvet had been torn, probably during the escape from the tunnels. Rodan was behind him, looking as blankly horrified as Alison felt.

The Doctor and the Master were beside her now. “We could stay in the TARDIS,” said the Doctor. “Just hide, until it's all over.”

“No,” said Alison, “we couldn't, could we,” but she leans into them, her companions, her friends.

“I need to get to the Panopticon,” said Rodan. “The breach needs to be sealed as soon as possible, and there's clearly no one capable in charge over there.”

“We'll take you,” said the Master gallantly, though his voice was still not quite human.

“I shall come as well,” said the Rani. “I suspect dear Romana will be in need of new Councellors, and she will not be able to afford choosiness.”

“How do you know the President's still alive?” asked Rodan, oddly hopeful, Alison thought, for someone the President had exiled to the Old Levels.

The Rani snorted. “That one? She'll see this to the end, you can be sure of that.”

Alison took her friends' hands. “There'll be other versions of you two there.”

“Almost certainly,” said the Doctor.

“God, that'll be fun,” Alison muttered. But she'd found her courage. “Can we take the TARDIS there?”

“I'd advise you not to try,” said Rodan. “The Vortex is highly unstable right now.”

“Well, walking's good for you,” said Alison philosophically. “But I'm changing out of these robes first.”

 


End file.
